SPY PICS: Next Renault Megane sighted

Renault’s aging third-generation Megane small hatch has passed its use-by date and is due to be replaced by an all-new model in Europe later this year.

These Automedia spy photographs – the first to be captured by its dedicated team of shooters – snapped recently in the frigid cold of the Arctic Circle, show the next, fourth generation Megane is well into development and will be a stylistically evolutionary follow-up of today’s curvaceous five-door hatch.

However, that doesn’t exactly apply once you peel the skin away and find it is underpinned by a brand-new platform also used in the current Nissan Pulsar. This could, and should mean an upward step in passenger accommodation, particularly in the rear where today’s Megane is somewhat lacking.

And if the general design language hasn’t changed a great deal, the new car appears to adopt a different approach to glasshouse treatment with an arching upper window line, a more conventional grille area (presumably with an oversize Renault logo) and a more rounded bonnet.

Automedia reckons the prototype showed every sign of being powered by Renault’s 1.2-litre turbo engine that is expected to be joined by the normally-aspirated 1.6-litre engine and, possibly, by the new twin-turbo version that is already being used in the new Espace MPV.

Australia should expect to see the fourth generation Renault Megane some time in the first half of 2016.